In recent years, the Internet has led to an explosion of information and resources. The Internet, generally, is comprised of various web sites operated by network servers where the sites provide information or perform services for accessing users. Once a user accesses a web site, the site can collect, track, and sell personal information relating to the user. Thus, the Internet raises concerns for the privacy and well being of its users.
One such concern is for the safety of children who utilize the Internet. In order to minimize this concern, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) was enacted in the United States of America and became effective on Apr. 21, 2000. COPPA applies to two groups of web site operators. First, COPPA applies to an operator of a commercial Web site or an online service directed to children under 13 that collects personal information from children. Second, COPPA applies to an operator of a general audience web site which has actual knowledge that it is collecting personal information from children.
COPPA establishes, inter alia, that certain web site operators take actions such as, for example, posting privacy policies, notifying parents of information practices, obtaining verifiable parental consent, and providing parents with access to children's information. Consequently, many web site operators have had to make their sites COPPA-compliant. However, one such difficulty that web site operators face is the time and cost of in fact becoming COPPA-compliant and maintaining compliance. Such difficulty has led many web site operators to completely block children from their web sites. Needless to say, such a solution is overly broad.
Therefore, a need exists for a method and system for obtaining and modifying parental consent for an operator of a web site, whereby a web site operator may easily and conveniently comply with COPPA.